


Another Rainy Day

by C4LIC4T



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Dissociation, Gen, I think I just wanna eat pancakes, In which John is a Sad boi, It's okay though, Medication, Pre-Canon, im good, pancakes are a reoccuring theme in my works, pregame, rainy day, self projecting, this is just how i feel when I have a bad time and this is how i'm coping, vague posting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24009976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C4LIC4T/pseuds/C4LIC4T
Summary: In which John has a bad week, but somehow things are going to be okay.
Kudos: 11





	Another Rainy Day

Early mornings are the worst, you think. It’s just starting to get light outside your bedroom window, and you can see the clouds lazily morphing as the sun creeps over the horizon to paint their bellies shades of grey, then warming them from the bottom up. You card your fingers through your hair, and your computer pings as your friends wake up. They don’t know you haven’t slept, but Jade says good morning and tells you about the dreams she had. You smile, the light from your computer making the ebbing headache just a little worse. The next is Dave, who’s a little slow on the uptake of his usual cool guy facade. He spends just a little time in the early hours of the morning being cryptic about his bro.

You can hear your dad downstairs, starting to get ready for the day. The shower first, then his humming as he shaves and starts breakfast. Your head hurts more as the light bleeds into true morning. You readjust your glasses. It feels weird. The way your skin moves over the bridge of your nose. You try not to think about it too much. 

The familiar feeling of weight in your chest settles in, and you sigh heavily as your shoulders hunch forward. You look up to the window again, it looks like today is going to be yet another rainy, sleepless day. It’s fitting, you think. You spend an undetermined amount of time running your fingers over your arm and idly scratching your fingernails across itches that didn’t exist until you scratched them, and now your arm is vaguely itchy and your nails have made angry red marks in your skin. You stop yourself before you make it worse. You type back to your friends as they go on about what they’re doing today, and whatever Dave is talking about right now. You’re too tired to really follow the irony at the moment, but it doesn’t stop him from sending you a wall of red text you’ll have to read later. The sun hits your house, and floods your room with bright light. You squint and spin your chair so you can shut the shades, and at least filter the light. Dave has the right idea with wearing shades all the time. You briefly consider asking your dad to get you prescription shades. It slips your mind when your dad whistles up the stairs, calling you down to eat.

You yell back down the stairs, rubbing your face under your glasses again and shooting a longing glance to your blinking computer screen. Dave is still sending message after message, and both Jade and Rose have gone offline. They’re hours ahead of you, and you haven’t slept. You sigh and swing your chair around, pulling yourself to your feet with the imaginary string tied between your eyes to pull you through the dimly lit path of your day to day life. It wasn’t a school day, at least, so you could resign to your room under the pretense of homework yet again. You know your dad doesn’t always buy it, but like the good dad he is, he lets you stay in your room most of the time as long as you eat and he gets to see you like, once a day. Your chest falls again, knowing the things your online friends go through. You’ve long since isolated yourself from the kids that live in your quiet suburb. Even though they’re nice enough to you at school, you just can’t bring yourself to be around them half the time. Most of the time even. Your feet are quiet on the stairs, and you quietly slide into the barstool with a plate bearing pancakes and eggs sitting in front of it. 

“Morning Dad, thanks for breakfast.” You say softly, and your dad smiles. He says good morning in return and tells you what his plans are for the day, asks you if you want anything from the store. You shake your head, but he slides the grocery list your way with a wink. He tells you about the newest episode of the show he’s been watching. You idly pick at your breakfast until you see the glass of orange juice offered to you and your dad’s outstretched palm offering you a pill. He smiles sheepishly and you smile back as you take both from him and take the medicine unwittingly. He knows you don’t like having to take them, but you know they help, so you don’t fight it. He asks you if you’re excited for your birthday, you happily impart some information about the game you and your friends are all excited about, he smiles brightly and you know he’s sold. 

You spend some time telling him about a movie you watched together with Jade last night, and how she couldn’t appreciate the true mastermind behind the movie because she didn’t like the acting. Your dad smiles and laughs and you know it’s a cautious kind of laugh, there’s something pressing against the back of his teeth as he talks, rolling on his tongue like a marble he’s trying not to spit out at the wrong time. Like a true gentleman at a fancy dinner, he doesn’t want to mess this up. It makes your head hurt a little more to know that your own dad is scared to ask you things. You know he just wants you to be happy, and that's all you really want too. You look past him to the rain streaked window. The bare tree in the front yard has a pretty red bird sitting perched on the branch where the remnants of a school project bird feeder hang. It chirps quietly, and your gaze falls to the unfinished breakfast soaking in the good maple syrup. You take a bite and the sticky pancake feels heavy in your mouth as your stomach churns. You force a smile and take a sip of the juice as your dad turns to start cleaning up from breakfast. It’s going to be another long day, you know it before it’s truly started. The red bird flies off, reminding you of Dave’s rambling, and the wall of text probably waiting for you when you get back to your room. 

“Son, it’s Sunday, will you take the trash bins out later?” Your dad’s voice is gentle, but you know it’s not a question. 

“I’ll set a reminder.” You reply quietly, taking another bite of pancakes. They’re not warm anymore and cold pancakes saturated with syrup just aren’t as good. You finish them anyways, and sheepishly put your plate in the sink as your dad washes the last of his dishes as well. You grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and slink off to the stairwell before your dad can get another word in edgewise. 

As you expected, all 3 of your friends had messaged you back. All but Dave are gone again, and you feel bad for disappearing without saying anything to him. You know he understands better than the girls do, but for some reason that makes it worse. The wind picks up outside, blowing rain against your bedroom window. You read through Dave’s ramble, and type out a quick apology for being away with the excuse tacked on that you didn’t want to interrupt his train of thoughts. You huff at the jokes as if on cue, feeling the weight of your sleeplessness start to creep in. When Dave goes offline suddenly, you take a break to settle yourself onto your bed. 

That’s when it really decides to hit you, the sadness. You’re not sure why you’re really sad. You have it so easy in comparison to your friends. Your dad loves you, you have your friends, school isn’t the worst, and there aren't any major glaring familial issues staring you in the face. You sniff slightly. You stare blankly at the floor for what feels like a few minutes, sorting the thoughts in your head. It hasn’t been a good week for you, and while you feel like you’re drowning, life carries on. That’s okay. 

You’re startled by your computer dinging again, it's Dave, and it’s the third message in a row he’s sent in the last hour. Had it really been that long? The rain has slowed down now, and the edges of the clouds are bathed in warm light that tells you it’s later in the day than you realized. You can hear your dad’s car pulling into the driveway. You hadn’t heard him leave. It really has been a long day. You don’t think you slept, and the pressure at your temples is throbbing slowly now.  
You take a swig from the bottle of water and the weight of it presses into the pit of your stomach as if it’s the first thing you’ve felt all day. You get the rest of the way up and answer Dave. Rose is worried. You chat for a little while, but you don’t get too deep into things. It’s not her real job to fix your issues, especially not when your cookie cutter life has no real issues to cause the way you feel. It makes you feel like you’re disappointing her, even with the interest she holds in psychology. Dave sends you a picture of his film negatives drying, it’s already sunset there, and even though his phone camera reminds you of someone taking a picture of something with a toaster. They’re gorgeous. 

You should really try to get through a chapter of your coding book again. 

You won’t today though, and that’s okay. You joke with Dave some, and spend most of the night awake and listening to Dave’s beats. Your dad brings you a plate and gives you a hug before going to bed himself, seemingly satisfied that you were awake and smiling about the last rap Dave sent you. 

You don’t know where you would be without your friends, or your dad, but you’re 100% sure it wouldn't be here.


End file.
